Tallulah Bankhead goes into a stall in the '21' Club bathroom. She soon pokes her head out. 'Is there any paper?' she asks an attendant. 'No.' A little later she sticks her head out a second time. 'Just some Kleenex?' 'I'm sorry, we have nothing at all.' A few minutes pass, and she leans out again. 'How about two fives for a ten?'

--Malcolm Forbes to members of the Bohemian Club, as reported in Spy magazine.

THE BROKER CALLS AT 8AM, TO FOLLOW up on the message he sent at 7:10, the one with the header, "Margin call--uuhhh! " Tech stocks are getting pounded, and it's time to cough up some more money to cover those lifestyle expenses that seemed so easy to make with "cash management" checks before the April meltdown.

Cheer up. Silicon Valley was a sunny, friendly, comfortable if unglamorous place before Audi TTs and Lincoln Navigators replaced Honda Accords as vehicles of choice on 280 and 101. Seems like all anyone can talk about these days are rents and real estate and salaries and options and taxes and gas prices. There's more to life than that, of course, and this fat issue is a reminder.

Money, after all, is just a virtual commodity. Its value lies in the collective hallucination. And with money-losing companies worth billions and fixer-uppers selling for a mil or more, we really do have to wonder what's in the water supply.

This week's free issue, on the other hand, provides true added value to anyone who understands that the only real thing anyone has in life is time and the ability to decide how to spend it. The Metro staff has expended considerable energies to produce this annual salute to the riches of the Santa Clara Valley that are available to anyone who lives here.

And while many of these pleasures are available for a pittance, we've adorned these pages with trappings of wealth and generous helpings of New Economy buzzwords. Designer Martin Venezky scanned genuine U.S. currency to create this issue's cover and ornament its pages. We also pressed renowned Dutch typographer Erik van Blokland into service and are pleased to showcase his latest work, the stately typeface "Federal," a creation that all patriotic Americans can appreciate in a year of free elections and falling interest rates. We are thankful that we live in a democracy guided by the steady hand of Alan Greenspan, and not Slobodan Milosevic.

Hopefully, this issue will help Metro's readers get fabulous dividends from the years that they invest in living here. In this neverland of nanoseconds, time goes by faster than we think. We hope you're enjoying the read.